A prisoner at a maximum-security correctional facility has sent a letter to Nan L. Crockett, author of Breakaway Laughter, to convey his appreciation for her book. He expressed thanks for helping him to evaluate situations differently, mentioning especially the chapter Digging For Gold, which suggests expanding one’s definition of normal. That, he says, “is something I can use everyday.”

Dr. William H. Thomas was honored in September with the Heinz Award for the Human Condition for his work as an advocate for the aging. His book In the Arms of Elders is a work of visionary fiction (formerly titled “Learning from Hannah” with an update regarding his work in the real world with The Greenhouse Project).

Congratulations to Dr. William H. Thomas for his recent recognition by the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA), which named his book What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World as Winner of the Medical Book Awards Competition in the Trade Books category. The Chinese-character rights have just been sold on an earlier book of Dr. Thomas’s, Life Worth Living, in which he presented the Eden Alternative concept for improving the nursing home experience for residents. His latest book expands on that concept and proposes a dramatically new approach to long-term care thinking called
The Green House Project.

5/05

Congratulations to Ed Webster, author of A
Year of Sundays, for his book’s inclusion in the list
of Finalists for Travel Essays in this year’s ForeWord Magazine
Book of the Year awards. If you haven’t read his book yet and you like
to read about real people in mature relationships, this is the book for
you!

The Massachusetts Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (MABIDA), awarded Nancy Lelewer, author of Something's Not Right, with the Alice H. Garside Award in September 2004, in recognition of her work in the field and for her years of service on the Board of the New England Branch of the IDA. Congratulations, Nancy, and thank you again for writing a book that continues to help many families dealing with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

7/04

Cathryn E. Smith's memoir, The
Glory Walk, achieved Finalist status in the category
Aging/Death & Dying in Independent Publisher Book Awards 2004. Earlier
this year, the memoir received a Book of the Year award from The American
Journal of Nursing, in its category Public Interest/Creative Works.
In an expanded comment, the reviewer declared the book to be "exceptionally
creative," the poetry portions to be "artfully written and evocative…beautiful
and often painful." Also, "As the book progresses, the seemingly
disjointed entries begin to flow seamlessly, like the days of one who
is lost in time. …The unusual format echoes the disease process
and in its way, takes a holistic view of life."

Formerly a division of a larger company that provided services to textbook publishers, the publishing entity of V&B is now on its own with a new business name of VanderWyk & Burnham Holdings LLC. The company will continue to be referred to simply as VanderWyk & Burnham, or V&B. Unchanged are its Post Office address, Web address, and toll-free number for orders. There is a new local phone and fax, and new email address (see Contact Us).

Bring Me the Ocean: Nature as Teacher, Messenger, and Intermediary by Rebecca A. Reynolds is becoming the talk of Zurich, Switzerland! Well, at least for the Ladies’ English Club in Zurich. Club members take turns choosing topics to discuss in English—and a recent choice was to read some of the powerful and poignant stories from Bring Me the Ocean. Not only did members practice their English, they learned about the phenomenal impact Animals As Intermediaries can have on those most isolated from the natural world.

As VanderWyk & Burnham launches its new book Sisters
and Brothers All These Years, the bound galley has already
gotten great reviews from independent booksellers. According to Maine
bookseller Lynda Sprague, “Lillian Hawthorne's new book about the relationship
between brothers and sisters is heartwarming and insightful. I highly
recommend this book.” Even well-known actor Dick Van Patten sent V&B a note: “You were nice enough to send me [this] excellent book, and it was very good. Please tell Ms. Hawthorne how much I enjoyed her book.”

Winter 2003

Already published in English and Chinese, The
Sacred Rules of Management adds Bulgarian to the languages
in which it will be published. People everywhere value the over 100 basic
guidelines that this book provides to build and improve managerial skills.

Dr. William Thomas, author of Learning
from Hannah and Life Worth Living
as well as the founder of the Eden Alternative, has recently received
a three-year fellowship from Ashoka for his social entrepreneurship work
with Eden and improving the lives of elders. Ashoka is a global nonprofit
organization that searches the world for social entrepreneurs—extraordinary
individuals with unprecedented ideas for change in their communities.

Dr. William Thomas (Learning
from Hannah, Life Worth Living),
founder of the Eden Alternative, gave a rousing speech at the First Eden
Alternative International Conference. Over 420 participants from 40 states
and 10 foreign countries met at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the
conference was a huge success.

VanderWyk & Burnham, Dr. Thomas, and Rebecca Reynolds (Bring
Me the Ocean) have a mutual friend in Danny Siegel of Ziv
Tzedakah, whose mission, put succinctly in one of Ziv’s newsletters, is
to accept money from others in order to give money to worthy projects
and individuals. Danny’s group purchases copies of Bill’s and Rebecca’s
books and gives them away across the country in order to spread the word
about the good deeds these people are involved in on a daily basis. Check
it out at www.ziv.org.

5/02

And the winner is…Are
Your Parents Driving You Crazy? At the 2002 BEA (BookExpo
America) in New York City, Independent Publisher announced that the book
written by Drs. Ilardo and Rothman
was the Winner in the Self-Help Category. The 2002 IPPY Awards honored
the works of independent publishers for the prior year. The overall competition
involved 1,185 titles entered by 765 publishers in 49 different categories.
The excitement continued when the book also received the status of Award
Finalist in Self-Help from ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year
Awards.

Are Your Parents Driving You
Crazy? was recommended in an article in the New York Timesa
positive write-up that was immediately spotted by an employee of Newsweek
Online, who contacted the authors for a Q&A interview. The authors
have also been interviewed by Time magazine. Concurrent with all
this attention, the L.A. Times Festival of Fitness and Health has
agreed that the topic of aging parents is of major importance, and they
are flying at least one of the duo of Drs.
Ilardo and Rothman out to participate in their panel discussion
on the topic. For other books in VanderWyk & Burnham's LIFE: PART TWO®
arsenal, check out our Catalog.

VanderWyk & Burnham is pleased as punch to announce the publicationon September 1of its newest book, If Kallimos Had a Chef: Natural Recipes for a Natural World by Debra Stark. The author owns and operates Debra's Natural Gourmet, a natural foods store in Concord, Massachusetts. Inc. magazine named her store "one of the five best hometown businesses in the country." Stark is lauded for giving back to her community and customers and for sharing the profits with her staff. In her book she uses excerpts from Learning from Hannah to underscore the simple goodness of nature. "Kallimos" is the fictional island in that book.

Great news came in about Life Worth Living in the Eden Alternative Journal's Winter 20002001 issue. Part of Life Worth Living is devoted to showing the extraordinary benefits to residents and staff of the Eden Alternative approach to nursing homes. These effects continue to be documented, most recently by Sandy Ransom at Southwest Texas State University, who prepared a careful review of changes in quality indicators at seven Edenizing skilled nursing facilities in Texas. The results are noteworthy. A few examples from the cumulative data:

The American Journal of Nursing awarded But This Is My Mothertwo Book of the Year Awards in the Consumer Health and Public Interest categories. This isn't the first time a VanderWyk & Burnham book has been so honored. Life Worth Living by William H. Thomas, M.D., received the Book of the Year award in Geronotological Nursing from the same prestigious journal.